Bachelet, 54, Chile's first female president (and only the second woman elected to lead a South American nation) was sworn in last March. A coterie of Forbes' Most Powerful Women attended the inauguration, from New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Bachelet got the star treatment again when she traveled to the U.S. for a dinner in June, where she met Forbes' Women's listers Sen. Hillary Clinton and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Bachelet's path to the top was not easy. Her father, Air Force Brigadier Gen. Alberto Bachelet Martinez, was imprisoned for working with former Chilean president Salvador Allende after Gen. Augusto Pinochet staged a coup in 1973; he later died in prison. Bachelet herself was arrested and later exiled. She returned to Chile in 1979 to pursue her medical studies, joining the Health Ministry as a consultant in 1994. She held various ministerial posts, including health and defense, before resigning in 2004 to pursue a formal run for the presidency. She won in a run-off election last January. —Tatiana Serafin

Published sources include the women's official biographies, Factiva, International Who's Who of 2005, Marquis Who's Who, World Almanac of Famous People, Palgrave Who's Who 2005, the Congressional Yellow Book, the Judicial Yellow Book, Europa World Year Book, Hoover's Online, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings, World Economic Forum, the World Book Encyclopedia. Rankings generated by combining various financial figures with other media and biography metrics; global media mentions from Factiva.

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